Sekhmet--
This is completely off-topic for an ancient Egyptian board, but I noticed that a lotus-flower is at the bottom of all your postings.
Here in Los Angeles, California, just last week-end they celebrated the annual Lotus Festival in Echo Park. I didn't go this year, but last it was really a lot of fun! In 1913, a woman started the Echo Lake Lotus garden with planting from her own garden in Beverly Hills. The plants now fill about 1/4 of the lake, and are really beautiful!

I am writing a story/novel (lol) based on the life of Akhenaten and I need to kill off Tuthmosis, his elder brother. I want to kill him with a hippopotamus on a hunt but could this happen just outside Memphis? Alternatively is it known how he actually died? I would love any good ideas for sets or scenes or characters. Here is a list of people I have so far:

Tiy-Powerful and manipulative. She is a Queen first and a woman second.
Ay-Wise courtier, always behind the Royal family and quietly powerful.
Tey-Kindly nurse who sees and knows all the goings on in the palace.
Amenhotep-Succeptible to the whims of Tiy but still powerful.
Mutemwiya-Kindly and wise, a wealth of experience who dislikes the viper, Tiy.

Nefertiti, Mutnodjmet, Akhenaten and Tuthmosis are all children at this stage. So their characters are still being defined. Akhenaten is isolated though. Any other characters that are essential to the early years of Akhenaten? That is from 12 to 18 years of age, before he becomes king.

i was researching that information about hippos, and crocodiles last year. i wasn't able to find any information to help. Thinking about it. i more or less decided that at least until the Roman occupation it is most likely that they continued to exist along the full lenght of the Nile. Why? At least until the Roman period? Because of the large numbers of aminals required by them for their games. It is accepted that they hunted some animals for their games until they were almost extinct. We do know that both hippos and crocodiles were popular animals in the Roman games. So, i think you would be safe in having Tuthmoses die in such an accident.

Great, thankyou. I am up to Page 35, A4 size 12 font and only a day and a bit has gone past. Tuthmosis will be bound for Memphis in a week, Mutemwiya is on her way and Tey has been appointed as a royal nurse. I have meesed about with some characters (making Tiy a real femme fatale etc) but I think it needs it, to liven everyday life up a bit. I have decided that there will be two deaths in the Royal family before Akhenaten comes to the throne. Tuthmosis and the fictional Ahmose, the youngest brother who dies before he is very old. I have made him very young, explaining why he isn't in the history books. I am really getting stuck in so I will keep you all updated!

Sure. I must warn you all though that I am not being entirely historical. I do not believe in the long co-regency so I am not using it. I am also changing dates about a bit to make the story fit btter. At the moment it is going to be in several parts. Part One is the story of Akhenaten from the age of 12 to the age of 19 when he ascends to the throne. In it he is isolated and virtually forgotten about. He grows up with Nefertiti and Mutnodjmet in the Royal nursery in the harem. He does this because Tey is a Royal nurse, and Nefertiti and Mutnodjmet are the step daughters of Tey. Tuthmosis, his elder brother is dispatched to memphis for the priesthood as soon as his sidelock is cut at the age of 13. Years pass, the court moves to Malkata and Amenhotep III is deified. Tuthmosis is killed in a hunting accident and Akhenaten is thrust from his private, loving life with Nefertiti into the harshness of the Court he has been isolated from. The first part of the entire piece ends witht his coronation and a prediction from the Oracle of Siwa of bad times in the future. It is really just a huge build up to the story of the upheavals. I needed to set the scene of an ancient land ingrained in its ways as most of those reading the books wont be Egyptologists like yourselves! Wish me luck.

Did Akhenaten live at the Malkata Palace. This palace located on the western bank of the Nile River. It was built late into the reign of Amenhotep III according to Joann Fletcher's book, Chronicle of a Pharaoh, The Intimate Life of Amenhotep III pg 128.

"At the end of his third decade as king, Amenhotep moved his court permanently to Thebes, where he had built "the palace of the dazzling Aten." Later known by its Arabic name, Malkata, "the place where things are picked up" (because it is littered with ancient debris), the palace stood stood on the Theban West Back below the western hills where the sun set each evening, and directly opposite the king's temple of Luxor. Amenhotep's move to Thebes was in direct contrast with the behavior of previous pharaohs, who had based themelves at the traditional capital of Menphis and had only come nouth to Thebes for the annual religious festivals, setting p temporary court in palace building attached to Karnak temple. In constructing an independent palace, not only at the other end of the city from Karnak, but also on the opposite bank of the river, Amenhotep was clearly distancing himself from the Karnak clergy."

Discovered in 1888, the palace is a huge complex sparwling over 30 hectares which was still being added to and emblelished that Amenhotep's death. The king's apartments was located in the southeast section, Queen Tiy's to the south and Sitamun's to the north. There were quarters for the rest of the royal family, numerous royal women, and resiences for hisgh officials and servants.

Now if you don't accept a coregency of any lenght between Amenhotep and his son... there is a possibility that yes, Akhenaten did live for a time at the palace. If he wasn't living in his own estate nearby. However, if you do accept a long period of coregency between father and son. He still may have lived at the palace but the lenght of time shorten because he did move his capital city to Akhetaten, in the 5th year of his reign and settled there about his 9th year.

So where might have Akhenaten grew up? The royal palace at Gurob is a good possibility. It was the palace that Amenhotep had lived at as a young boy. It is located in the southwest of el-Lahun in the Fayuum oasis, on the edge of he desert. It is often referred to as a harem palace. One of Amenhotep's favored guardians came from this area. Then Akhenaten might have grown up in Memphis... i think Gurob is more likely because in Queen Tiy's later years it was one of her favorites.

I have done this in the novel/story. I gave Akhenaten his childhood from his birth to the age of 11 at the Palace in the Faiyum. At 11 he was moved to a palace in Waset (I am using the ancient names), but after a couple of years he moved to Malkata for the last years of his fathers life. At the moment he is 12, I am not sure when to move him to Malqata though. It needs to be before he is 16, as it is the palace that has a profound effect on him. I give the reasoning for his hatred as thus:

In Waset he was virtually shut away from the Temple, he is mentally abused and a hatred of Amun installed in him indirectly by both his mother and those around him. Kept in this horrible state in Waset he feels liberated in "the place of the dazzling Aten", thus cementing his gratitude and dedication to the god.

I know it isn't along the lines of what most of you believe to be the case, but it makes a good story for me. It sounds dreadfully bad when I condense it like I have done above but I think that it is really taking shape. I have built up a good mood, keeping the inside and outside of the Palace two different worlds. The main these of the story is conflict. Internal conflict inside Akhenaten, conflicts of the court, the conflicts of the priesthood and monarchy, the conflicts living itself. I have made characters like Tiy all have their own counter characters so you have the juxtaposition of opposites. For the viper Tiy there is the motherly Tey. For the wise Ay there is the drunkard Anen, for the athletic Tuthmosis there is the weak Akhenaten. Any feedback on this would be great so please feel free to be honest.

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